Visualized Related Topics (VRT) system for health information retrieval

To help bridge the gap between consumer user's vocabulary and controlled vocabulary used to index health information, in this demo we implemented a Visualized Related Topics (VRT) browser system. The VRT was integrated into the “MeshMed” [2] system to support health information retrieval. The key technology behind the VRT browser is to select MeSH terms, which represent the related topics or subjects, from the top relevant documents. We rank these MeSH terms using the traditional Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) algorithm. The VRT browser displays a graphic representation of these MeSH terms by creating a visual where the selected MeSH terms stem from the centered user query. The design goal is provide users an overview of the key topics of the search results. In addition, VRT browser may also help users form better queries. Using the VRT browser we will be studying how to effectively assist in consumer users with their health information seeking.